Well, I finally found the first thing I dislike about Catholicism. Some of you will be very happy!

Since today was the first day of Advent, incense was lit at Mass. I’m allergic to incense. It makes my eyes water and burn, my face itchy and hivey, makes me cough, and gives me migraines. I was almost feeling completely perfect the second I stepped out of the church.

I’m thinking I should probably take something before I go next week. I could just pop in a few Benedryls.. oh wait.. I’m allergic to that, too. Perhaps I could take the Benedryl and have a battle to see what kills me first.

Don’t worry, it’s not actually bad enough to make me abandon the whore of Babylon. I have no problem just sucking it up and moving on.

Ironically, I had decided yesterday that I was going to write about the physical of the Catholic church and how much I like that. God is a bit of a smart alec, I think.

One of the best things I like about my journey to Catholicism is the use of the physical to put my mind on Christ. As an evangelical, there was a sense of reliance on the will or the emotive to reflect on God. At least for me, it became a battle of wills to focus. The body was evil and there was a sense of having to be “more spiritual” than the body in order to properly reflect on Christ– “will it to happen” enough, and one’s relationship with Christ will grow stronger.

As a soon-to-be-Catholic, there is no need for mental gymnastics, as surroundings are constant reminders or cues to focus on God. It’s more calming, less stressful and more glory goes to God instead of my own abilities to remember.

I have read articles comparing the use of the physical and the five senses in the Catholic Church to the reliance on intellect or emotion in the Protestant Church. I personally recognized it though when I lit the first Advent candle this evening and Sam read this prayer:

Faithful God, we tend to wander from your constant friendship. Continue to gift us with watchful hearts so that as you come into our daily lives, we might be open to your love and come to witness that love in our concern for others. Help us to be aware of your kindness; in your mercy, grant us your salvation. Come, Lord Jesus, come.

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Sam and I went looking for an Advent wreath. We looked all over and couldn’t find anything Advent anywhere. We finally ended up at Hobby Lobby, where I put together a candle wreath, candles and holders. It was kind of ugly, but it worked.

Then we came home and realized we needed to go to Wal-mart. We checked out the candle section and found these. I like this much better. It’s sitting on our kitchen table and next to it is another candle holder that was my mom’s and the Bread of Life readings, also my mom’s. Each card has a verse on one side and a kind of poem thing on the other in KJV, very Baptist all over, not just the KJV. I thought I’d spread a little spirit of Christmas love and togetherness by including the Catholic Advent “wreath” next to the Baptist Bread of Life, though, of course.

We didn’t get our Christmas decorations up yet, but we hung our wreath on the door! We actually just bought this one from Hobby Lobby today, but it’s pretty much an exact replica of the one I already had, except the one I already have is a bit thicker and nicer. I was kind of afraid it’d get stolen though and it’s from my mom’s funeral (it was covered in beautiful purple flowers for the funeral), so we bought a cheapy one for outside. We’ll hang the nice one in our bedroom probably.

We set up the Advent candles and Sam read a prayer for the day before Advent that was found at: http://www.fisheaters.com/customsadvent2.html .

The Day Before Advent
Blessing of the Wreath

O God, by whose word all things are sanctified, pour forth Thy blessing upon this wreath, and grant that we who use it may prepare our hearts for the coming of Christ and may receive from Thee abundant graces. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.

We have an actual book of readings for every day, so we’ll be using that for the rest of Advent.

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I want to do a proper thankfulness fo yesterday, nothing eloquent, just important.

I am thankful for family, friends (and my kitty cat, except she thinks she’s people) and my amazing husband.

I am thankful for being able to feast to the glory of God in a home I love. I’m thankful for health and God taking care of my every needs.

I am thankful for life, new adventures and Arbor Mist, because real wine isn’t tastey.

I have the rest of our pictures from yesterday– great pictures from a fantastic day!

So lovely, and very heavy…

Yum, everything, except the gravy. I left that on the stove and forgot to bring it to the table for the picture.

Carving the turkey! And by “carving”, I mean, “RARR EVIL TURKEY!!”

My plate. I only took this because it ended up looking so colorful and pretty! haha

ME EAT TURKEY ROAR.

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Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

So, I already have a story and it’s fairly early in the day.

So.. my husband.. yeah. So, I gave him ONE job to do. ONE. haha. I asked him to make the peanut butter balls, easily the very easiest of all things that are being made, short of opening the can of cranberry sauce, which I’m starting to think I should probably not ask him to do. First, it took him over an hour to make the freaken balls, without the dipping in chocolate part– we’re talking a 10-15 minute job tops. During that time, I managed to make potato salad– including the boiling potatoes part, boil and peel two dozen eggs, make deviled eggs and do half of cleanup.

All you have to do is throw in cream cheese, butter, powdered sugar and peanut butter in a bowl, mix it up, and make balls from it. That’s it. Really. Then you put it into the fridge over night, and in the morning you dip them in chocolate and put them back in the fridge.

Well, we’re on the dip in chocolate stage… the part where he burnt the chocolate… the chocolate that comes in a “dip ready” container… that has directions on the container on how to microwave it to melt it… he burnt it. Burn. Now he’s at Wal-mart to get more chocolate.

*snickers* This is what I get for leaving him unattended for five seconds.

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At least that’s what my apron says.

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I am getting really excited about Thanksgiving! I even bought an apron today at Bed, Bath and Beyond, which is actually the very first time I’ve ever been there (weird, eh?). It says “Domestic Diva” on it. Gosh, I feel so wifey. Maybe I’ll wear a dress and heels while cooking too, and by that I mean a pair of jeans and a hoodie, well not a hoodie because that’s too bulky, maybe a tank top.

I’ve got the entire day’s television schedule all ready to go, too, like the dork I am. I couldn’t find anything to watch between 12-2pm, so I guess we can eat then. hehe

We don’t have RCIA this week because of Thanksgiving and I think I’ll kind of miss it. When we get back though, we’ll be (hopefully) discussing the Rite of Welcoming/Acceptance (acceptance for those not baptized, welcome for those already baptized). I’m not sure yet which week it will be, but it was briefly mentioned this past Thursday. This is where we formally stand up in church and say that we’re attending RCIA and we desire being welcomed into the Church. This is basically the step where Husband and I will go beyond “inquiring” and become official candidates.

This will be the first year I’ve ever officially celebrated Advent. My extent of experience here is having one of those calendars where you rip off each “door” and there is a piece of chocolate behind it. I might just have to get one of those again because I love chocolate and all, but beyond that, does anyone reading this know of any ways to celebrate Advent at home?

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A few more recipes, easy ones!

I am making the peanut butter balls for Thanksgiving. I’m probably not going to make the dip, but I wanted to post it anyway. I was going to, but then I decided that with everything else, I’d just buy French onion dip and call it quits, haha. We’ll see, I might end up making it, since I have all the ingredients.

Peanut Butter Balls
The Beverly Lewis Amish Heritage Cookbook (thanks Melissa!!)

8 oz. cream cheese, softened
1/2 c. butter, softened
2 c. peanut butter
4 c. powdered sugar
Melted chocolate [they make chocolate chunks that look like wafers made for dipping that I ended up buying]

Mix cream cheese, butter, and peanut butter together by hand. Gradually stir in powdered sugar; mix well. Form into balls and refrigerate overnight. Dip chilled balls in melted chocolate.

Dip

[I have a recipe book that was put together by my aunt. It has all of my grandma's handwritten recipes photocopied and bound into it. My grandma passed away a long time ago, but my aunt gave the books to all of the grandchildren a few years ago.]

8 oz. sour cream
1 C. Hellman’s mayonnaise
2 tbsp. dill seed & weed
2 tbsp. parsley flakes
2 tbsp. onion flakes
1 tbp. seasoned salt

Mix thoroughly and refrigerate, overnight preferably.

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Our library has a request/suggestion form thing, where you can fill out what books you’d like them to get, and they may or may not get them. I requested about a dozen books mixed between some Catholic books I’d like to read and some fat acceptance books I’d like to read. We went to the library today and the guy at the desk said there was a note on my account. He told me the books that they’d be getting and the ones that they were not going to be getting, from my recent requests. And then he said that they will not be getting any more Catholic books beyond what they just ordered, at all, because “they already have an extensive supply of them”.

Uh huh. I wasn’t aware that the 1/4 shelf of Catholic books, mostly biographies of past Popes, and two generic prayer books, is an “extensive supply”, particularly since the entire Christian LIVING section is two massive aisles. (And then there are the normal two aisles of actual reference/academic books and a few other religions mixed in.) The Wicca section is two shelves! (It just goes to show you that the Bible belt would accept a witch before a Catholic! haha!) I mean, surely if there are four shelves of Christianity, more than a 1/4 shelf of that could be Catholicism since it is the largest sect of Christianity. And, even if they don’t want more books than that, which is their decision and all, surely they can’t expect me to believe that this is an “extensive supply” by any means!

Perhaps, what they meant to say is that there are enough Christian books in general, so they won’t be getting more of a specific sect, but alas, the majority of the Purpose Driven Life or Prayer of Jabez crap books really don’t apply to Catholics (heck, nor should they apply to Protestants either). The thing is, they do actually have more books on specific Protestant denominations, such as Methodists or Baptists, than they do on Catholicism. There is ONE book on the Orthodox Church. A few of the academic books do, of course, mention Catholicism or Orthodox, but only in reference to the history of denominations or whatnot… nothing about them individually.

So, as a mature grown woman, I say to my library. They do so, so well in every other area, too. They’re actually one of the places I am happy about in Joplin, as they are very up-to-date in books, and very good with completing series or having varieties by different authors, not just popular ones– all problems I regularly dealt with when I lived in York– and that library was at least twice the size of this one (I do miss their wonderful children’s section though!)

And I should totally get a say in how things run at this library since I check out probably close to 200 books a year– just for me (like, I don’t have a family card, it’s all me!!)!!!! And totally have half of the shelves memorized, fiction and non! I’m a bit rusty on the Children’s section, but I’ve got the Teen one, and the Large Print sections completely under control!

P.S. If Christy happens to come across this post, these are the books I checked out of the library today:

The Cap: the price of a life — Roman Frister
Castles Burning: a child’s life in war — Magda Denes
The Mongol Reply — Benjamin Schutz
Par for the Course — Ray Blackston
The Pianist — Wladyslaw Szpilman (seriously, how have I never read this?)
Picture Perfect — Jodi Picoult
Poison — Susan Fromberg Schaeffer
The Red Necklace: a story of the French Revolution — Rod Townley
Salem Falls — Jodi Picoult
Women of Magdalene — Rosemary Poole-Carter
You Know Where to Find Me — Rachel Cohn

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Tonight we had birthday dinner with Husband’s parents. His mom and I were October and his dad is this month and with a lot of things going on lately, we missed most of them, so his parents took us all out to the Japanese steak and seafood restaurant, the one with the Hibachi grill. I had never been to anything like that, but it was pretty awesome. Everyone sits around the grill and we watch them cook our food and do a show, yeah, I know, everyone else has probably been to one already so you know what I mean. The best part was when the cook stacked up the onions, like a volcano, poured oil in the center and on the side of the grill, and lit the side on fire. Then he dipped his fingers in the fire, catching them on fire, and lit the volcano onions with it! And the food was fantastic! We are so doing it again.

The reason we didn’t go in the past was because everyone said it was so pricey, but it’s not anymore than Olive Garden or Applebee’s or something like that. And we were sort of intimidated by the sitting with everyone thing, but it wasn’t scary at all, I wouldn’t recommend it for a private family dinner or anything, but it wasn’t like everyone was all up in our grill. (haha, grill, get it?!) So, we’re definitely going back.

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I’m reading Goldengrove by Francine Prose right now and I find myself staring at the pages marveling at the fantastic writing. I read Blue Angel by her, and though it’s one of my favorite books, I don’t recall any passages sticking out. It might just be me, but I love reading these…

- Even the trees looked uncomfortable, naked and embarassed, as if they were all simultaneously having that dream in which you look down and realize you’ve forgotten to put on your clothes.

- Every so often, I made myself look, searching for the spot where Margaret dove in. It was like staring at the sun, dangerous and searing.

- When I opened my eyes, I was staring into a snow globe on Magaret’s night table. I’d always loved it and wished it were mine. I used to imagine that if I stared into it hard enough, I could dissolve into atoms and pass through the scratched plastic globe, and a miniature version of me would reassemble inside it, twirling in the storm beside the tiny ballerina that I realized, only now, was a figure skater.

- Margaret’s death had shaken us, like three dice in a cup, and spilled us out with new faces in unrecognizable combinations.

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